Blog

“There is a nobility in the duty to care for creation through little daily actions…”
Pope Francis, Laudato Si – On Care for Our Common Home

As the Holy Father makes his first visit to the United States, he is sharing a powerful message of environmental stewardship – and eGiving is one of the best ways for your church to put Pope Francis’s message into action and protect our natural world. Did you know that pulp and paper production is the third largest producer of air, water, and land pollution? eGiving helps churches cut down on envelopes and checks… which leads to reductions in how much paper your parish uses and wastes.

An analysis of Faith Direct parishes and dioceses shows that overall, since 2004, our program has helped eliminate nearly 40 million envelopes.

Offering your parishioners an eGiving option – and by implementing a program that spreads the news about the importance of eGiving, and inspires as many people as possible to sign up – is one of those “little daily actions” heralded by Pope Francis that can make your parish greener, and have a tremendous impact in the world around us.

John and Kristen, a young couple with two children, have decided to support a new capital campaign for the construction of a parish life center… Blessed with unexpected income, Ryan decides to increase his giving by taking part in the upcoming second collection for World Mission Sunday… Amy is particularly inspired by a powerful Sunday homily, and wants to make an immediate one-time gift to celebrate and sustain the church’s ministries…

Would these generous individuals be able to make their special gifts to the church using your eGiving program?
You need to make sure they can…

For your program to be truly powerful, it must enable church members to give not only their traditional weekly offertory, but also second appeals and one-time gifts.

This is the flexibility your members want from your eGiving program. They’re no longer using checks and envelopes for their offertory, and they appreciate the same efficiency and simplicity for all of their church giving.

At Faith Direct we’re seeing members make the most of the flexibility provided by eGiving:

Among all Faith Direct churches, close to 25% of donations are given to programs outside traditional offertory – whether it’s a seasonal campaign, specific mission collections or emergency appeals.

If you look at Faith Direct churches that have an ongoing capital campaign, the number is even larger – 35% of their members’ donations go to additional collections.

The best eGiving programs empower your members to give whatever amount they want, whenever they feel inspired – online, over the phone or with an eGiving app. Bringing this flexibility to your program will let church members like John and Kristen, Ryan, and Amy do their best to support all of the church ministries.

If you want your eGiving program to make a real difference for your church, then having a well-designed, user-friendly smartphone app is a must. Apps and mobile friendly websites are how people manage their lives today – the numbers make that clear:

64% of American adults own a smartphone; 42% have a tablet computer; and 32% own an e-reader – which means more and more people have access to apps and mobile sites.

63% of adult cell owners use their phones to go online. (Here at Faith Direct, we’ve seen mobile access to our website increase by 400% since 2011!)

76%: app usage growth in 2014.

What must a strong eGiving app do?

When Faith Direct first introduced our mobile app in 2012, the market was still adapting to this new technology. Now that demand for our app has increased, we’ve redesigned it to best serve our users.

Here are four things we’ve learned about what a strong eGiving mobile app must do:

Easy access to account management – Members must be able to increase their monthly gifts, support new campaigns and update their address and payment info.